Anyone who’s seen even a glimpse of the MTV reality show "16 and Pregnant" knows that teen pregnancy is often traumatic and fraught with pain and uncertainty.

Typical episode titles include, “Party girl with troubled past gets pregnant while her mom is in jail,” “All American girl gets pregnant from a one night stand,” and “Ex-party girl tries to get her stoner boyfriend to straighten up before their bundle of joy arrives.”

But in human and economic costs, there’s little entertainment value when it comes to Florida’s more than 496,000 teen child births over the past two decades.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, teens and their children are much more likely to have lower education, health and economic outcomes than those who wait to have children. As a result, taxpayers are on the hook for billions in related costs, according to a new study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Funded in part by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the study says Florida’s taxpayers contributed $443 million in teen childbearing costs in 2010, the most recent data available. Nationwide, taxpayers spent $9.4 billion.

“In addition to improving the well-being of children, youth and families, reducing teen pregnancy also saves taxpayer dollars,” Sarah Brown, the nonprofit’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

It’s a subject that can ruffle politically correct feathers, and focusing on costs appears to be another way to address the problem.

After controlling for differences in mothers’ characteristics, the study compared estimated costs for teen mothers participating in government assistance programs with mothers in their early 20s.

Some of the programs considered in the analysis were Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Assistance for Needy Families. The latter two were formerly known as food stamps and child welfare, respectively.

The good news is that births among 15- to 19-year-old girls has been cut nearly in half since 1991. Still, 17,125 children were born to teenage mothers in the Sunshine State in 2011, ranking Florida 25th among states.

According to the federal Office of Adolescent Health, adolescents who have a baby are less likely to finish high school, are more likely to be poor as adults and are more likely to rely on public assistance than those who do not have a teen birth.

Local governments in Florida received more than $4.8 million in federal grants to combat teen pregnancy, including $778,000 for Planned Parenthood. A $2.7 million abstinence grant was awarded to the Florida Department of Health.

“If we reduce the rate of teen pregnancy, we’ll reduce the public costs of funding teen pregnancy,” Jessica Sheets Pika, spokesperson for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, told Watchdog.org.

Comments (7)

really

10:25AM MAY 5TH 2014

It is Planned Parenthood that is getting all the free federal money to use for abortions that many have been using for "birth control" because no one has been giving them free money to buy birth control pills and stuff.

Now we find out that some hospital in the USA has been caught burning the dead babies to heat the hospital.

This is not a black and white thing - this is a total loss of morals and character thing. When humans have no morals that actually act worse than most other animals. They destroy their own young. Back in the day welfare mothers was rewarded for making babies - the more they had the bigger the checks! Now DCF has privatized the baby business with 18 Community Based Care organizations contracted with Fl DCF.

One of their main functions is to provide adoption services for babies born to mothers in the care! Each of the privatized organizations receive millions of free tax dollars every year. While organizations like Planned Parenthood is spending millions of our tax dollars aborting babies - many other tax receiving organizations are "spending money to hire volunteers" to picket the abortion clinics for save babies from abortion so they (mother and child )can be turned over to their baby selling friends.

While collecting millions of or tax dollars where is the accounting for the dollars received by these authorized adoption agencies like Kids Central for all the babies they sell?

Kids Central, Inc. is the nonprofit organization serving Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion and Sumter Counties. The agency develops and manages a comprehensive, community-based system of care for abused, neglected and abandoned children and their families. Kids Central is committed to promoting the welfare of expectant mothers, babies, children and young adults through prevention services, in-home care, foster care, and adoption.

Together with involvement from the communities we serve, Kids Central is Building Better Lives and strengthening families in our part of the Sunshine State.

And remember there is 18 of these so called non-profit organizatons working under contracts with the Florida Department of Children and Families! Wonder where Rick Scott and Charlie Crist stand on the schemes to defraud the taxpayers while they make out like it's all for the children?

"According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, teens and their children are much more likely to have lower education, health and economic outcomes than those who wait to have children. As a result, taxpayers are on the hook for billions in related costs, according to a new study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy."

Perhaps if you returned God into the classroom this unfortunate statistic would be on the decline. So once we have a new human being born of a teenager, that child would not necessarily be doomed to be less educated if it was not doomed to government schools.

What we need to know now is how many teens who visited Planned Parenthood became pregnant versus how many teens who had abstinence only education. Because we should know where that grant funding is more effective.

Perhaps also, instead of a sex education focusing on the hows not to get pregnant, it should include the whys girls should wait.

And I know it's time that sex education includes teaching the guys that they are equally responsible to prevent an unplanned pregnancy. They should also know what their carelessness can wrought not just on him, but on the girl and his baby. If not outright aborted, it will grow up at a slight disadvantage, if not a major disadvantage. We should also force some responsibility on the fathers (of every age as well). They should have to support their child/children in any way possible. No job, then they stand on the corner waiting for a day laborer job- or they are responsible for child care while the mother works. Anything to not give them a free pass.

I am 65 years old and all my adult life I have watched black females have multiple babies by multiple fathers and the system gives them more money for more babies. These people don't work, live off of selling drugs and the government, drive fancy new cats and eat T-bones.
They are going to use the system...so change the system. Quit rewarding the immoral promiscuous creatures for popping out babies that they can not support.